I’m Starting Book Collections

HAHA I know, I’m trying to cut down on books, why would I be collecting them? Well, part of cutting down the number is because I want to be more intentional about the books I collect and hold onto. I want to complete some series I’d started accumulating, and some collections based on author, but also two thematic collections: Star Trek original series books and queer scifi/fantasy up through the 1990s or so.

I already have a lot of the Trek books, although many are tattered old library copies. These are generally easy to find and don’t cost much, and it was easy enough to find a complete list online, so this is mostly a matter of accumulation. There are some things like comics or things outside the numbered list of novels that will take more money or work, but in general I just want to complete the collection and replace my worst copies. I’m a big enough nerd that I actually do think “Aw man, I wish I had that Trek novel so I could check that…” on a pretty regular basis.

Here’s what I’ve got right now (deeply unorganized until I get more bookshelves):

The queer scifi/fantasy collection is designed to be more of a hobby. Tracking down books and acquiring them, books that probably fewer people are collecting or saving, in a niche that interests me. A collection that’s less about completeness — there’s no numbered list here, it’ll never be “finished” — and more about enjoying the collecting. I’ve been looking into some different hobbies and side projects I’d like to work on now that I’m out of school, and this’ll be fun as well as somewhat meaningful (helping preserve copies of books that might be lost otherwise) and have the advantage that I can spend as much or as little time as I want, with no pressure. Like with the Trek books, a lot of these will be inexpensive.

Most of the relevant books I already own are in boxes, I didn’t have them separated out like I did the Trek books, but here are the covers:

I’ll have a picture one day when I finish reading through the boxes, but that’ll be you know… years from now. Heh. Might have to settle for periodic updates. I’m also accumulating a lot of queer superhero stuff and other queer comics so I might divert more attention to that, I’m not sure yet!